"130 million Americans—54% of adults between the ages of 16 and 74 years old—lack proficiency in literacy, essentially reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level." - Barbara Bush Foundation
- Thank you for these lessons! In going through this program and completing these lessons, I constantly remind myself that so many in society can't read complex information or haven't received the opportunity of a just education to do so. By no means am I proficient at reading or breaking down complex information, but I'm thankful that I have the opportunity to further my understanding and knowledge.
#feedback - based on the title this page is equating simplicity with clarity, it would help to either rename the page or give more information relevant to the term used in the title, rather than them differing.
I've honestly realized this myself within the last couple of weeks being in this course and even reading on my own time, how little I am focused on the complexity of the sentence now but my brain is slowly being trained to see the structure of it all in kernels yet not intimidated by it. I am glad that I'm slowly getting a chance at the cake now too. Hope to have more, if not all of it.
#feedback on "Write more sentences. Use more words. That's how you can increase simplicity. More people will have an easier time understanding what you write."
* This statement is theoretical true, however it is hard for me to understand as the meaning that varies from case to case for the words "an easier time" and also along with the context has been provided in the previous paragraph to draw the conclusion at the end.
The expression "have your cake and eat it, too" doesn't make logical sense because once you eat your cake you can no longer possess it in cake form because you've eaten it. Paul Brians, Professor of English at Washington State University, points out that perhaps a more logical or easier to understand version of this saying is: “You can’t eat your cake and have it too”. Professor Brians writes that a common source of confusion about this idiom stems from the verb to have which in this case indicates that once eaten, keeping possession of the cake is no longer possible, seeing that it is in your stomach (and no longer exists as a cake). Alternatively, the two verbs can be understood to represent a sequence of actions, so one can indeed "have" one's cake and then "eat" it. Consequently, the literal meaning of the reversed idiom doesn't match the metaphorical meaning.
Fair enough, this sheds some light on a couple things. Think about a scholarly article that is being written about the impact of foreign policies on the exportation and importation of oil. Imagine the amount of the author of the article will put in researching, all the information that he will accumulate. The data, anecdotal sources, and scientific readership that will be used in this journal is tremendous. But, the author only has about 4-5 pages to write. He must rely on grammar, he did all this work and he knows it is extraordinary, but how extraordinary is it really, if he cannot convey it within 4-5 pages? That is where modifiers, linking clauses, and reasonable assumption will pop their head to ensure that the author can express all the work he did in this condensed article.
Think about a tweet that you wanted to create on twitter, and this particular time you had a lot to say and you wanted to tell everyone! However, remember twitter used to have a character limit, remember how frustrating that would be sometimes because we felt that the character limit was holding us back. In reality, if we had a solid understanding of grammar we could of condensed the information within the character limit.
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19 comments
This is interesting and true! Academics aren't trying to be pretentious with their complex sentences, it is just normal for them at that point
English is my third language, so I am looking to taking advantage of these lessons not just for the LSAT but also for life. Thank you.
This might be pedantic, but I'd like to ask a question of referential with an example from the text above:
"There are many things we value in our language but two in particular are simplicity of expression and economy of expression."
Is "two" a referential that refers to "things," or am I misunderstanding?
"130 million Americans—54% of adults between the ages of 16 and 74 years old—lack proficiency in literacy, essentially reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level." - Barbara Bush Foundation
- Thank you for these lessons! In going through this program and completing these lessons, I constantly remind myself that so many in society can't read complex information or haven't received the opportunity of a just education to do so. By no means am I proficient at reading or breaking down complex information, but I'm thankful that I have the opportunity to further my understanding and knowledge.
grind it out!
Perfect execution of describing something in detail and condensing it into the review text.
#feedback - based on the title this page is equating simplicity with clarity, it would help to either rename the page or give more information relevant to the term used in the title, rather than them differing.
This page would've been perfect to insert the picture of Kevin from the Office "why waste time say lot word, why few word do trick".
Loving the program so far!
Thank you for these lessons. This teaching is starting to simplify this process!
All of this is making so much sense, thank you! I feel like I’m processing information so much quicker.
Thank you so much for these grammar lessons.
I've honestly realized this myself within the last couple of weeks being in this course and even reading on my own time, how little I am focused on the complexity of the sentence now but my brain is slowly being trained to see the structure of it all in kernels yet not intimidated by it. I am glad that I'm slowly getting a chance at the cake now too. Hope to have more, if not all of it.
#feedback on "Write more sentences. Use more words. That's how you can increase simplicity. More people will have an easier time understanding what you write."
* This statement is theoretical true, however it is hard for me to understand as the meaning that varies from case to case for the words "an easier time" and also along with the context has been provided in the previous paragraph to draw the conclusion at the end.
The expression "have your cake and eat it, too" doesn't make logical sense because once you eat your cake you can no longer possess it in cake form because you've eaten it. Paul Brians, Professor of English at Washington State University, points out that perhaps a more logical or easier to understand version of this saying is: “You can’t eat your cake and have it too”. Professor Brians writes that a common source of confusion about this idiom stems from the verb to have which in this case indicates that once eaten, keeping possession of the cake is no longer possible, seeing that it is in your stomach (and no longer exists as a cake). Alternatively, the two verbs can be understood to represent a sequence of actions, so one can indeed "have" one's cake and then "eat" it. Consequently, the literal meaning of the reversed idiom doesn't match the metaphorical meaning.
"us lay people" lol
Fair enough, this sheds some light on a couple things. Think about a scholarly article that is being written about the impact of foreign policies on the exportation and importation of oil. Imagine the amount of the author of the article will put in researching, all the information that he will accumulate. The data, anecdotal sources, and scientific readership that will be used in this journal is tremendous. But, the author only has about 4-5 pages to write. He must rely on grammar, he did all this work and he knows it is extraordinary, but how extraordinary is it really, if he cannot convey it within 4-5 pages? That is where modifiers, linking clauses, and reasonable assumption will pop their head to ensure that the author can express all the work he did in this condensed article.
Think about a tweet that you wanted to create on twitter, and this particular time you had a lot to say and you wanted to tell everyone! However, remember twitter used to have a character limit, remember how frustrating that would be sometimes because we felt that the character limit was holding us back. In reality, if we had a solid understanding of grammar we could of condensed the information within the character limit.